Harry Potter and the Devil's Game
by DarkLordHufflepuff
Summary: Response to ChAOtiC ReApEr's Joined Souls Challenge. Dark-Gray HHr Soul bond. Really don't want to go into to many details for the story.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any other aspect of the Harry Potter universe.**

**May 27, 1993 Headmaster's Office, Hogwarts**

A small boy with black hair walked into the office of the Headmaster of Hogwarts and threw a small black book onto the Headmaster's desk. It appeared at first glance to be quite an ordinary, except for a small hole that appeared to have been burned through the center of the book. Nothing about the book could explain the look of loathing and disgust in the eyes of the boy, but as he looked from the book to the Headmaster the disgust grew even more prominent.

"What is this Harry?" the Headmaster asked as he looked at the book over the top of his spectacles.

"I believe I requested that you not refer to me in such a familiar fashion Professor." Harry replied.

"My apologies Mr. Potter. Now could you please explain what this book is." the Headmaster corrected himself.

"Do not play your games with me Professor, you know full well it was. What is more I am quite certain you knew the moment it entered the school. You also know that it was not unique, you knew that before I was born, before the prophecy even." Harry said his eyes like frozen green fire.

"Very well Mr. Potter, I know what it was, but how do you know what it was?" the Headmaster asked looking Harry in the eyes for the first time. Seconds after making eye contact he closed his eyes in a grimace of pain.

"Professor Dumbledore I would recommend that you not attempt that again. The next time you try to enter my mind a migraine will be the least of your worries. To answer your question though, I know because I discovered the one you already knew the location of." Dumbledore looked as if he was about to interrupt, but Harry cut him off "It has been dealt with. _He_ works for me now."

"You can't trust him Harry, he will only manipulate and corrupt you. I can help you." Dumbledore said pleadingly.

"That is where you are wrong Professor, I can trust him. I can trust him to be self-serving, I can trust him to deceive me, and I can trust him to always be ready to betray me. I can trust him because I understand him. I know what he wants, I know why he wants it, and I know what he is willing to do to get it. The same cannot be said of you. He needs me to live so that he may continue existing, he also needs me to let him continue existing. As long as he assists me in my agenda and doesn't become a nuisance I am willing to accept his eccentricities. Should he become more trouble than he's worth, I will destroy him." Harry explained calmly.

"And what exactly is your agenda Mr. Potter?" Dumbledore asked barely preventing his nervousness from coloring his voice.

"Revenge." Harry said simply a touch of childish joy entering his voice as he spoke the word. "I will destroy everyone responsible for the death of my parents."

"Voldemort is the only one responsible for James and Lily's deaths." Dumbledore said trying to sound comforting.

"That is not quite true Professor. Voldemort cast the curse that took their lives, but others were responsible. Those who created him, supported him, aimed him. Voldemort was just a symptom of the disease that plagues Magical Britain. Once I have treated the symptom I will cure the disease. I will destroy all those who perpetuate the system of corruption and bigotry that protects them." Harry said as plainly as if he were explaining how to tie your shoelaces.

"So here we come to the purpose of my visit to your office today. I am here to deliver a warning. We can never be allies you and I, but we do not need to be enemies. You get this offer only once, you have earned a chance, only one chance. You used to be a good man, before your idealism turned to fanaticism, before you decided that it was acceptable to sacrifice anyone and everyone on the altar of your own ego. Stay away from me, stay away from my wife, keep your head down and stay out of the game. Do this and you can die peacefully in your bed." Harry said as he rose from his chair before leaning across the desk so his face was only inches from the Headmaster's "Fail to heed my warning and I will personally send you to hell, screaming for mercy." Having delivered his threat Harry turned on his heel and exited the office.

**Three Years Earlier, #4 Privet Drive**

Harry Potter was in pain. It was the most excruciating pain he had ever experienced in all his nine years of life, and that was really something of an achievement. Harry Potter was no stranger to pain, pain was his constant companion, his first memory was of pain, and now, unless he was very much mistaken, his last memory would also be of pain. Harry Potter was dieing, and he knew it. He was broken, battered, and bleeding, lying on the floor of the cupboard he called home.

He had known from the moment he woke up that morning that it would be a bad day. He had awoken to find himself locked in, and when his Aunt Petunia had unlocked the cupboard door she had been furious that he hadn't started breakfast yet. His Uncle and Cousin were furious that they had to wait for their bacon and eggs, and they made sure he knew of their displeasure with promises of pain that would be coming later. At lunch his cousin Dudley had decided to repay Harry for his late breakfast. Dudley had gotten his friends together and they had chased Harry across the school yard. When they reached the cafeteria building he tried to jump the short fence that separated the big trashcans from the rest of the yard, and he suddenly found himself on the roof of the cafeteria. When the school janitor had brought him down from the roof he was taken to the principals office. The principal called Harry's Aunt and informed her that Harry had gotten in trouble for climbing onto the roof. When he got home after school his Aunt had sent him to his cupboard immediately to await the return of his Uncle. When his Uncle Vernon had come home from work he was in a foul mood, when Aunt Petunia had told him about Harry being on the roof of the school his mood grew even worse. Uncle Vernon wrenched open the door of Harry's cupboard and grabbed him by the hair dragging him into the hallway before picking up the fire poker and raining down blows on the defenseless boy. At first Harry didn't cry out, after all the pain wasn't all that bad and if he cried out in pain the beating would only grow worse. By the time that the pain became unbearable Harry found that it didn't matter if he wanted to scream in pain, he couldn't draw in enough breath to whimper, let alone scream. After ten minutes of beating the small boy Vernon Dursley lifted him up and threw him into the cupboard under the stairs and slammed the door before locking it, and then he walked out to the garage, grabbed a plank of wood, a hammer, and some nails and proceed to nail the cupboard door shut.

Harry knew he was dieing, and in some ways he welcomed death. In fact if dieing wasn't so painful he would probably be shouting for joy at the thought of finally escaping from life, but dieing did hurt. It hurt worse than living, and while he knew that the pain would soon end that thought didn't help him deal with the pain. Living hurt, but it had never hurt this badly, and that seemed to be truly unfair if death was the end of life and life was pain, shouldn't death be the end of pain?

_'No.'_ said a silky voice in his mind _'Life is only pain because you are weak, only the weak welcome death. And while you may be weak I am not, and I will not let you drag me down with you into the abyss.'_

Suddenly the pain lessened and the absence of pain was the most exquisite feeling Harry had ever felt. With the pain now gone Harry's exhaustion caught up to him and he slipped into sleep. In his sleep he dreamed of magic, of witches and wizards, of a hidden world, of _power_, but he knew these were not dreams, they were memories. They were not his memories, they belonged to the _Voice_. The Voice had once been powerful, but somehow it had lost its power. Harry wanted to know how the Voice had fallen so far but he could not focus enough to look and the Voice did not want to show him. When he finally awoke he knew that his life had been changed forever. He knew why strange things happened around him, he was a _wizard_, he could bend the forces of the universe to his will. Power was within his reach, all he had to do was take it.

_'You have awakened child. Hurry up, we have much to do.'_ the Voice said. **'No.'** Harry thought. _'What do you mean "no" you owe me your life, you will do as I say.' _the Voice commanded some of the smoothness disappearing. **'You did no such thing, you saved your own life. I owe you nothing.'** Harry thought growing irritated with the Voice. _'Insolent child! You dare to defy the will of Lord Voldemort! Very well I shall crush you and take this body as my own!'_ the Voice shrieked dripping with pure malice. Harry felt as if he was being stabbed in the head and tried to push the pain aside. To his surprise it worked, the pain decreased. With the pain gone he became aware of the presence of the Voice in his mind and he decided to show it who was in charge in _his_ head **'No You Will Not! Your power has left you and now you are trespassing in MY mind. I am the master here and you will do as I command.'** and with that pronouncement he launched his own assault against the Voice. The Voice was unable to defend itself, to busy attacking Harry to notice the attack coming. Suddenly Harry was bombarded by memories, just like last night, only this time he was in charge of the show. He delved deep into the Voices memories, trying to understand where the Voice had come from. Slowly he came to understand, he saw the life of Tom Marvolo Riddle. He saw the orphan boy had become the monster, he saw how he came to power, he saw how he created the abominations known as horcruxes, and he saw how his parents were murdered.

**'So Tom you are a horcrux, that is why you are here. Well I shall have to find a way to be rid of you so that I may see to the final demise of Voldemort.'**_'No'_ said Tom _'I am no longer a horcrux, the magic that allowed me to act as an anchor was used up when I healed you. Now I am nothing but a piece of soul. You have no need to destroy me.'_ **'Perhaps, but I also cannot trust you. No, I will destroy you eventually, but that is not a priority. As long as you are of use, and behave yourself, I will allow you to continue existing.'** Harry thought while deciding on his course of action. **'I will need a wand and once I have one I will teach my relatives a lesson.'**_'Very well I shall help you. I know a place where you can get a wand. They are expensive, but they understand discretion. They will accept gold and jewels in trade, I assume your Aunt has jewelry, take it and we will be on our way.' _Tom told Harry.**'That is all well and good, but how am I to get out of this cupboard?'**_'The same way you got onto the roof yesterday. Remember the feeling and focus on it and a destination, your magic will take care of the rest.'_

Tom explained. Harry thought about what it had felt like when he had found himself on the roof. Focusing on the strange squeezing sensation he had felt he closed his eyes and when he opened them he found himself in the upstairs bathroom. Carefully he opened the door to his Aunt and Uncle's room. Finding it empty he went over to his Aunt's jewelry box and took everything that looked promising from it. All told he took five necklaces, two pairs of diamond earrings, and a handful of rings. He then returned to his cupboard where he changed into different clothes and put on a hooded sweatshirt before focusing on being outside. Harry took two buses to the nearest tube station and took the underground to a place that Tom had called 'The Leaky Cauldron'. Upon arriving at the pub he sat down at a table in the corner and waited for someone to go through the back door. Tom had explained that the entrance to Diagon Alley, a magical shopping district, was through there, but without a wand he would be unable to open it.

Harry didn't need to wait long, twenty minutes after he had arrived at the pub a older woman entered and went straight to the back door. Harry quickly followed her and once she had opened the gateway to Diagon Alley he went through and turned down a side street onto Knockturn Alley. He quickly made his way down the seedy looking street to an unmarked doorway. He knocked three times on the door and a gruff voice responded "Who goes there?"

"I am in need of your services." Harry responded following Tom's instructions.

"You have coin?"

"I have goods in trade."

"Show me." The voice commanded and a tray slid out of the door. Harry placed one of the rings on the tray and it slid back into the door. After a few seconds the door swung inward "Enter." Harry walked through the now open door and it immediately closed behind him. "This will not buy you much." The voice was coming from down a corridor and through a door that stood slightly ajar.

"I have more." Harry said as he walked down the corridor.

"Good" Harry saw now that the voice belonged to an old man. The man was hunched over a work table his hands working nimbly on a block of wood. "Show me all of it and I will see what I can do for you." Harry emptied all of the jewelry onto the table "This is much better. What kind of wand were you hoping for?"

"The best that this will buy." Harry told him.

"Very well. I will need a drop of your blood and I shall begin working on a wand for you." The old man said as he rummaged through a drawer. When he turned back to harry he had what looked like a glass needle in his hand. "Hold out your hand." when Harry complied the old man jabbed his forefinger with the needle and the needle turned from clear to blood red. "Wait here." he said before heading through another door.

**'Who is this guy?'** _'He's a wand maker, and that is all anyone knows about him. In exchange for his privacy he doesn't ask questions beyond "can you pay".'_

Twenty minutes later the old man returned with a thin black box "Ash and dragon heart-string ten-and-one-half inches. As this is a freshly made wand I am required by law to inform you that it is illegal to use this wand without first presenting it for registration at the Ministry o Magic. Have a good day." he handed Harry the box and gestured toward the exit.

When Harry left the store he began walking back down Knockturn Alley, all the way down the street he had a strange feeling that he was being followed. He turned around he saw a dark gray puppy staring at him intently. He walked toward the puppy and when he knelt down to pick it up it jumped into his arms without hesitation.

_'Fascinating, a shadow hound.' _**'What is a shadow hound?'** _'A shadow hound is the off-spring of a hell hound and a mortal canine. And it appears this one has taken a liking to you. Shadow hounds are stronger and faster than mortal dogs, they are unfailingly loyal to their chosen masters, and are able to see souls.'_ **'I like him.'** "Hey there boy, do you want to come home with me?" Harry asked looking to all the world like just another boy with a new puppy. The puppy barked happily and wagged his tail. "Alright then, you will need a name. I know, I will call you Scruffy." Scruffy licked Harry's face and jumped out of his arms and started bouncing around his feet. Harry continued walking back to the Leaky Cauldron and back out into London.

When Harry returned home he was glad to see that his Uncle had already returned from work. Pulling out his new wand he walked up to the door and with a muttered blasting hex the door was blown off its hinges. Harry walked through the door muttered "_reparo_" and watched as the door reattached itself to the frame. "I'm Home." Harry called his voice full of malicious amusement. Vernon came blustering out of the living room and looked ready to launch into a tirade before Harry preempted him with a silencing charm "Now now Uncle, it is my turn to speak. For the last eight years you have ridiculed, starved, and beaten me, that ends now. You have spent eight years poking a caged tiger, and now that tiger has broken free. Did you really think I would never learn of the power at my disposal, or did you think I would allow your transgressions go unpunished. It doesn't matter anymore I am no longer afraid of you, and I shall now teach you the error of your ways." The sounds of Vernon, Dudley, and Petunia's screams filled the house for the rest of the evening, but because of the privacy charms that Harry had placed before he went to work the world outside was unaware of the sufferings of the Dursleys.

**A/N: This story is a response to ****ChAOtiC ReApEr's**** Joined Souls Challenge. The challenge is as follows:**

**Joined Souls Challenge**

I have always wonders what would have happened if both Harry's and Voldemort's soul joined together. So that is why I have set up this challenge. Okay so there is two ways to write this story, one is having Harry becoming evil and the other having Harry staying good.

**Requirements for both story's**

It should start with Vernon almost killing a young Harry which results in both his and Voldemort's souls joining to save his life.

Harry must gain all of Voldemort's knowledge of the dark arts and of the wizarding world

You can have him being super powerful or you can just have him with all the knowledge and intelligence

Must be a Harry\Hermione ship it also can be Harry\Many but Hermione must be the main wife

Story must start before he goes to Hogwarts (age 6-10)

Dumbledore must be a manipulator so he must be bashed

Snape can be good or bad

Has to have major Weasley bashing

It can be a bond fic if you want

Also if you get Sirius out of prison early you should have them stay near Hermione's house

Genres should be romance and whatever you choose

Rating can be whatever you want

**Requirements for evil Harry**

Harry must use the Dursley's as test subjects for his new dark powers

With his knowledge of all the Death Eaters, he can use it to force them to join him (although this should only happen when he is older)

His animagus should be a Dementor, a Nudu and whatever else you want

He should not be in Gryffindor

**Requirements for good Harry**

His animagus should be basilisk and whatever else you want

Do not make him remorseful like Dumbledore; he should want to take down the Death Eaters

He should not go to Gryffindor

**I will be following the challenge with only minor exception, I don't like doing magical or multiple animagus forms since there is no basis for those in canon. I will be working on this story and my other two stories at the same time so I don't know how often any of the stories will be updated. ****The main reason I am starting this story now is because I thought up the opening scene and I wanted to get it written before I lost it. Hope you all enjoy and leave a review.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter**

**July 25, 1991 #4 Privet Drive**

Harry Potter woke up like he had every morning since he had moved into his new room a year and a half ago. He sat up in his comfortable king-sized bed stretched and looked around his room. The walls were lined with bookshelves and those bookshelves were filled with books that covered every aspect of magic. Books on magical theory, magical history, myths and legends of the magical world, and an entire shelf was devoted to books that dealt with illegal magics. A couple of these books handled truly black magic, but in Harry's opinion true black magic was only of limited use, most black magic was done in the form of ritual magic and while it granted power it always came at a price and most of the time that price was not worth paying. Harry had delved deeply into what was widely referred to as the dark arts, at their most basic level the dark arts were spells of a destructive and malicious nature. Unlike black magic the dark arts were not inherently evil, they were simply frowned upon by idealists who felt they had the right to tell others how they should use magic.

After showering Harry dressed in his usual wardrobe, black slacks, a red t-shirt, a black button up silk shirt and his custom made black dragon-hide trench coat. The coat was more than just a coat, it was a suit of armor, because it was made of dragon-hide it was naturally resistant to magic and very resilient to non-magical damage, along with this natural defense there was a magically lightened steel plate in the back and inside the lining was magically lightened chain-mail. The coat also had comfort charms and self-sizing charms so that he could wear the coat whenever he wanted to and would never outgrow it. The coat had cost the equivalent of 30,000 pounds, but the price wasn't a problem as Harry had decided that Vernon needed to be punished for his continued disobedience, so he had Petunia sell Vernon's Mercedes.

Ever since he had discovered magic the family dynamic at #4 had changed dramatically. Harry was now the undisputed ruler of his little kingdom and as long as his subjects remembered their place there were no problems. Petunia had been the easiest to teach the new rules to, after the first night when Harry had demonstrated just why they should be afraid of him he had only needed to punish her a handful of times before she had accepted Harry's rule without question. Dudley had been resistant at first but after Harry had had all summer to educate Dudley the large boy had quickly learned his place. Vernon however had been a challenge, he was stubborn and refused to accept the change in authority. Harry had been very forceful with Vernon, but when Vernon had nearly lost his job because he had used to many sick days recuperating from Harry's lessons Harry had to find other methods of punishing his Uncle that did not leave gaping wounds. Vernon still had a tendency to act out and Harry was constantly trying new spells he found as punishment, he had just found a new one the night before that sounded promising. It was a variation on the basic stinging hex that apparently felt as though the victim had been stabbed with a white-hot knife but did not cause any physical damage.

Harry made his way downstairs and entered the kitchen. As soon as he sat down at the head of the kitchen table Petunia placed his breakfast in front of him along with a thick envelope "Your Hogwarts letter arrived Harry." Petunia informed him. Harry nodded his acknowledgment before opening the letter

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

_We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts_

_School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all_

_necessary books and equipment._

_Term begins on September 1. We await your owl by no later than July 31._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Minerva McGonagall,_

_Deputy Headmistress_

**'How should I handle this'** Harry wondered **'If I simply get all of my supplies on my own people may wonder how I knew exactly where to go, but if I ask for an escort they might notice something'** _'It is easier to hide from one person's observations than many peoples speculations.'_ Harry finished his breakfast before he grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and wrote out a letter.

_I am very eager to attend, however I am not aware of how to obtain the necessary supplies. My Aunt mentioned that when my mother was accepted to Hogwarts a professor assisted her in getting her supplies and introduced her to the magical world, as all my knowledge of magic is second hand from my Aunt I was hoping a similar arrangement could be made._

_Sincerely,_

_Harry James Potter_

**'There, that way I can afford a few slip ups about what I know without raising to much suspicion.'**_ 'An excellent decision Harry, now just go out back and call for an owl to deliver it.'_ Harry folded the piece of paper wrote _Hogwarts_ on it and took it out to the backyard where an owl was already waiting for his reply. Harry simply held the letter out to ward the owl and it swooped down to take it before flying off with the letter.

Later that day Harry was reading through a book on ritual magic, another branch of magic that was considered to be highly suspect at best and extremely dark at worst. To be fair though this was mostly due to efforts by the Ministry of Magic to discourage the practice of any kind of magic that they had trouble regulating. While he was reading his Aunt knocked on his door and informed him that he had a guest. When he descended the stairs he was met with the sight of the sternest looking woman he had ever met, her dark hair was pulled back into a tight bun and she wore emerald green robes.

"Good afternoon Mr. Potter, I am Professor McGonagall. I am here to escort you to Diagon Alley to purchase your school supplies and to answer any questions you might have about the magical world." The woman informed him, a clear Scottish influence in her voice.

"Hello Professor, I hadn't expected a reply so soon." Harry said as he shook McGonagall's hand.

McGonagall gestured for Harry to follow her and walked out the back door, when they were both alone in the backyard she responded "Actually I was expecting a reply from you, I told Headmaster Dumbledore that it was unlikely you would be able to get yourself to Diagon Alley, and even more unlikely that you would know enough about magic to be able to assimilate to Hogwarts. I told him we should treat you like any other student who had grown up in a muggle home, but he said your Aunt would explain everything to you, clearly she didn't know enough."

"Professor, How will we be getting to Diagon Alley?" Harry asked trying to sound curious.

"Normally I would escort you to The Leaky Cauldron in London, but because we are getting such a late start we will be apparating directly into the alley and I will show you how to get in on your own after we get your supplies." The professor then gripped Harry's shoulder "This may be a little uncomfortable, but that is perfectly normal the first few times you apparate." and before Harry could respond Harry felt the familiar squeezing sensation, a little stronger this time than when he apparated by himself.

When they arrived in a small side street of Diagon Alley McGonagall looked down at Harry a look of surprise on her face seeing that he took apparating so well. When Harry saw her surprise he quickly guessed the source of her surprise "I think I've done something like that before a couple of times." Harry explained nonchalantly.

"That is quite impressive Mr. Potter, apparition is difficult magic to perform without proper training. However I must insist that you do not attempt to experiment with it on your own as it is potentially dangerous if you make a mistake. Now our first stop is Gringotts Bank, here is the key to the trust vault your parents set up for you." McGonagall handed Harry a small gold key and led him out onto the main street toward the impressive white marble facade of the wizard bank. In Gringotts Harry and McGonagall were taken down to Harry's vault by way of a very fast mine car. Harry enjoyed the ride immensely and was surprised to see what looked like a small smile on the normally stoic professor's face. When Harry entered his vault he was amazed at how much money was in there.

"Griphook," Harry turned to the goblin who had escorted them to the vault "how much money is in here?"

"Your trust vault currently contains 50,000 Galleons, it is to cover all of your expenses until you gain access to the main Potter vault." Griphook explained.

"And when do I gain access to the Potter vault?" Harry asked while he gathered up some coins into a bag.

"You would gain access when you take up the position of Lord Potter, which you can do on your thirteenth birthday."

The rest of the trip to Diagon Alley was mostly uneventful, Harry bought his required course books and a couple of general knowledge books, including a copy of _Hogwarts a History_, to explain any slip-ups when he got to school, he bought his robes, cauldron, and potion ingredients, and then went to Ollivander's wand shop to purchase another wand. Harry really didn't need another wand, but he couldn't think of any excuse he could give McGonagall for already having a wand, so he went along with it. Ollivander's was a dimly lit, dusty, and cramped little place full of shelves that were absolutely covered in small boxes, and Ollivander himself was a strange little man who fit the shop perfectly. Ollivander proceeded to measure Harry with an enchanted measuring tape while making small talk about how he remembered selling Harry's parents their wands. After then having Harry try what seemed to be every single wand in the store, he gave him another wand which Harry still felt wasn't anywhere near as good as his current wand but Ollivander seemed pleased with the results and made a comment about how the holly and phoenix feather wand had an identical core to Voldemort's wand.

McGonagall never stopped watching Harry with extreme scrutiny, she had been surprised that the family she had watched all those years ago while sitting on a brick wall as a cat had somehow changed so completely and produced the young man she now saw. She had been concerned that Harry would be mistreated by his relatives, and to some extent she was quite certain she had been right, Harry showed subtle signs that he had not always had such a nice home life and when she dropped Harry back off at home she could have sworn she saw a flash of fear in the eyes of his relatives, but what could have possibly caused such a reaction.

The moment Harry returned home Scruffy came bounding up to him and jumped up into his arms. Scruffy had grown quite a bit over the last year and was now nearly the size of a full grown German Shepherd, and from Harry's research Scruffy was not done growing yet. Scruffy would actually have been indistinguishable from an adult German Shepherd except that he had charcoal gray fur with almost scarlet highlights.

"Hey boy, did you miss me." Harry asked his furry friend a genuine smile on his face for the first time all day.

"And who is this?" McGonagall asked glad to see that Harry was at least well adjusted enough to still smile when he was playing with his dog.

"This is Scruffy, he just followed me home about a year ago." Harry told the professor before an idea hit him "It's too bad I'll have to leave him here when I go to Hogwarts." Harry allowed a touch of sadness to enter his voice as he said this.

McGonagall felt her heart break a little at the look on Harry's face as he contemplated leaving his dog behind when he went to school. "Well," she finally said after a few moments "students are allowed a pet, but normally a dog would not be allowed. However based on how Scruffy responds to you I want to check something." McGonagall pulled out her wand "You said he just followed you home?" Harry nodded and McGonagall waved her wand in an intricate pattern muttering a long incantation. When she completed the spell a little ball of white light floated toward Scruffy and when it came in contact with his fur it turned dark gray and floated toward Harry and when it touched him a line of light stretched between them. "As I thought, it appears that Scruffy is more than an ordinary dog, and he is in fact your familiar. As such you will be permitted to bring him with you to Hogwarts. I look forward to seeing you on September first, you will need to board the Hogwarts Express from Kings Cross. It leaves from platform 9 ¾ at eleven. To get onto the platform simply walk straight at the barrier between platforms 9 and 10. If you have no more questions I will take my leave."

Harry spent the next month waiting excitedly for the beginning of September, he read through all the books he had bought on his trip to Diagon Alley, he made sure to reinforce his lessons to his relatives so they wouldn't backslide while he was away, he played with Scruffy, and he tried to decide which house he should be in at Hogwarts.

_'Slytherin!'_ **'No, there is no benefit to being in Slytherin.'** _'It is the greatest and most noble house, being in it will bring you great respect and power.'_ Harry snorted at the absurdity of this statement **'You truly are delusional, Slytherin is locked in a past that is long since gone. Being in the House of the Serpent will only bring me enemies and suspicions, I would be better off in Gryfindor.'** _'You cannot be seriously considering the house of fools.'_** 'No but at least in Gryfindor I would know none of my housemates are devious enough to stab me in the back with any degree of success.'** _'Then it is down to Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff.'_ **'Then it really comes down to quality or quantity of allies, those in Ravenclaw would be of greater value, but those in Hufflepuff would be easier to win over.'** after a few moments of consideration they came to an agreement _**'Ravenclaw'**_.

The morning of September first Harry was sitting in an empty compartment on the Hogwarts Express an hour before it was scheduled to depart playing a game of solitaire on the bench across from his seat. Scruffy was curled up on the seat next to him and Harry hoped that the presence of the shadow hound would be sufficient to keep away any annoyances. Twenty minutes before the train was going to leave the station the door of the compartment opened and a girl with bushy brown hair stepped into the compartment.

"Do you mind if I sit in here?" She asked in a timid voice, apparently afraid of Harry's possible reaction.

"Go ahead." Harry told the girl gesturing to the only open seat in the compartment.

"Thank you, my name is Hermione Granger by the way." Hermione said extending her hand.

_'A mudblood! Get her out of my sight!'_ **'Manners Tom, do not forget your place. I am the master here and if you forget that I will be forced to punish you most severely.'** "Harry Potter." Harry told her shaking her hand.

"Are you really. I've read all about you. I got a few extra books for background reading and you're in _Modern Magical History_ and _Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ and..." Hermione started clearly building up for a long exposition on all the things she had ever read about Harry.

"And you can forget most of what you've read about me. As far as I know only three people were in that room, and two of them are dead and I was only a year old. Apart from the small section in _Rise and Fall_ everything else is supposition, speculation, or sensationalist fiction." Harry told her getting slightly annoyed **'That's odd, normally I'd be more than a little annoyed at someone for going all starstruck like that.'** Tom declined to comment on Harry's observation.

"Sorry," Hermione muttered clearly worried that she had upset Harry in some way "I just get excited about things I've read about and I tend to get a little carried away." Hermione didn't say anything else for a few minutes and just watched Harry's game of solitaire. "Those are some strange cards." She finally commented hoping the change of topic would ease the tension in the compartment.

"They're wizard playing cards. For the most part they follow the same basic rules of muggle cards but they developed a little differently." Harry told her, glad to be able to discuss a topic he had some interest in. Harry had come to love games, games of any sort with few exceptions. Games were a way to understand people, to analyze the way they thought and acted, without them realizing that they were under any real scrutiny.

"Really, what's the difference?" Hermione asked clearly excited to be able to learn something new.

"Well the suits are not the standard heart, diamond, club, and spade, instead you have wands," he indicated an appropriate card to illustrate the suit "cauldrons, coins, and knives. There are no aces, in stead you have ones, and the jack is replaced with the lord." He indicated a one and a lord. "When playing cards were first introduced to Europe the suits were swords, rods, cups, and coins, regional decks started to develop with slight differences, and in wizarding communities this type of deck is what emerged. The coin stayed the same, rods became wands and cups became cauldrons, the last wizard to wield a sword had been Godric Gryfindor nearly four centuries before cards were introduced to Europe, but knives were still in common use by wizards so the sword suit became knives. The ace was a regional change that never caught on in the wizard world and the jack was simply a different name for the lowest court card."

Hermione was in awe at the level of knowledge Harry had about something as simple as playing cards "How do you know all of this?"

"I like to read." Harry told her with a chuckle "When I found out wizards used different playing cards I spent a week looking up information on the history of cards to find out how it had happened. What house do you think you'll be in?"

"Well, I hope I get in Gryfindor, but I'll probably be in Ravenclaw. I hear Dumbledore was in Gryfindor and a lot of other famous people were in Gryfindor." Hermione told him.

"Do you really want to be in Gryfindor? You'll spend seven years in whatever house you are put in, and personally I'd rather be in the house that fits my personality than one that a lot of famous people came out of. I think I'll probably be in Ravenclaw, and I wouldn't be upset about that at all." Harry told her returning to his game.

"I guess your right, I would probably do better in Ravenclaw, besides then we'd be in the same house." Hermione said after contemplating what Harry had said, a small smile on her face at the thought of being in the same house as the boy she was talking to. At her last statement Scruffy looked up at her and barked happily before licking her face excitedly.

"Down boy," Harry said putting his hand on Scruffy's shoulder "I guess he likes you. That is quite an accomplishment, he gives most people the cold shoulder."

"I didn't think you could bring a dog to Hogwarts, the letter said you could bring a cat, an owl, or a toad."

"Well Scruffy here isn't a pet, he's my familiar and there is an old rule from when Hogwarts was founded that allows students to bring their familiars with them." Harry explained while scratching Scruffy behind the ear.

"But only magical creatures can become familiars, or at least that's what I've read." Hermione said with interest.

"That's true, but Scruffy isn't an ordinary dog, he's a shadow hound." seeing the look of confusion on Hermione's face he continued "Shadow hounds are the off-spring of hell hounds and mortal dogs." Hermione immediately shrank back a little from Scruffy. "Contrary to muggle myth hell hounds are not evil, they act as wardens off the lower planes, keeping damned souls from escaping to the mortal world." Hermione visibly relaxed.

"So other than being part hell hound is there anything special about him." Hermione asked, cautiously reaching out to pet Scruffy.

"Shadow hounds have some natural talent with illusions, especially when used for stealth, and when they growl they create an aura of fear that can overpower just about any threat temporarily. Other than that they just get really big. Scruffy here will probably grow to be about the size of a Saint Bernard."

After that they spent some time talking about a number of different topics both magical and muggle. While they were discussing the potential advantages that an understanding of science could bring to using magic they were interrupted by a redheaded boy who came barging in.

"Hey do you mind if I sit here, everywhere else is full." The boy said, and without waiting for a response he sat down across from Harry "I'm Ron Weasley, who are you" the boy said while glancing at the lightning bolt scar that clearly proclaimed Harry's identity.

"This is Hermione Granger," Harry said gesturing to Hermione, who Ron continued to ignore "and I'm Harry Potter." **'As if you didn't already know'**

Ron's reaction was as predictable as it was annoying, his eyes flashed with a look of unrestrained greed "It's a pleasure to meet you Harry, I'm sure we'll be great friends while we're both in Gryfindor." Harry could see his own annoyance mirrored in Hermione's expression at being completely ignored. Scruffy had clearly picked up some sinister motive from the redhead as he started growling and Ron almost immediately shrank back from the menacing shadow hound.

"He doesn't like you." Harry said and delighted in the glimmer of fear in Ron's eyes "_I_ don't like you either." Harry continued, this got a small snort of laughter from Hermione and Ron all but ran form the compartment. Harry turned to Hermione and continued "You just watch yourself. We're wanted men. I have the death sentence on twelve systems." Hermione could no longer contain herself and broke out laughing.

The conversation then turned to movies, and eventually came around to what they were looking forward to in classes, Hermione mentioned that she was looking forward to Transfiguration, and when Harry mentioned Charms she started listing the spells she was most excited about learning. When she mentioned levitation Harry amazed her by quoting the exact passage about it in their textbook, even giving the page number.

"How do you do that?" She asked after looking up the page to check Harry's quotation "I have a really good memory and I would only have been able to paraphrase that, and I certainly wouldn't have remembered the page number."

"Occlumency." Harry stated, once again getting a look of confusion form Hermione. "It's a branch of magic that is used to protect your mind from intrusion, but part of the process is organizing your memories, which allows near perfect recall as long as you continue to keep your memories organized. I could teach you how to do it if you want." Harry told her and was answered with a tight hug.

Harry then walked her through the basics of occlumency, he had her clear her thoughts of everything. Harry was surprised that she had such an easy time completing this step so he had her move onto the next part. "Now for the harder part, picture a place where you can keep and organize your memories. For example I use an office with multiple filing cabinets."

"Could I use a library?" Hermione asked.

"That would be perfect." Harry said.

Hermione then spent an hour slowly organizing some of her memories within her mental library before Harry told her to stop. "You should probably take a break, if you spend too much time in your mindscape it can give you some nasty headaches." Hermione nodded her understanding "Over the next few days take about an hour a day to organize your memories, you will want to make sure that the more private memories and those memories you want to keep secret are better hidden and harder to get to. Once you have completely organized your memories you will want to expand on your mindscape, otherwise anyone who tries to enter your mind will automatically find themselves in your library."

"When you say expand my mindscape, what exactly do you mean?" Hermione asked trying to fully understand what she needed to do.

"Well you want to give your library context to exist in, you create a world for it to be in. For instance my office is in a large house, so anyone who wants to get into my mind has to find their way to the house and once inside of it they have to discover where I've hidden the office, and then they have to figure out how my thoughts are organized in order to find what they're looking for."

"Isn't it difficult to keep all of that straight though, if you created to big of a mindscape how could you remember all of it?" Hermione asked trying to get an idea of the limitations she would be working with.

"Not really, your mindscape is maintained by your subconscious mind and it is much better at keeping things in order once you have consciously created it."

They then spent twenty minutes discussing possible ways for Hermione to hide her library before they were interrupted again. This time a boy with pale blond Harry, a pair of goons and a permanent sneer on his face opened the door. "Is it true that Harry Potter is in this compartment?"

"Yes, and now that you have confirmed my presence here you can feel free to leave." Harry said having no interest in dealing with this boy.

"My name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy."

"Ah you must be Lucius's little biological accident." Harry said finally recognizing the characteristic Malfoy sneer. "In that case you can leave immediately."

"My father..."

"Was a coward and a liar, who lacked the spine to show his face as he tortured innocent women and children and only avoided spending the rest of his life in prison because he spent enough of his ill-gotten gold bribing officials to avoid a trial." Harry said definitively, making it clear that the discussion was over "Now get out of my sight." he snarled as Scruffy again began to growl. For a moment Harry had to wonder if Draco was as stupid as his father while the blond idiot decided whether or not to leave, but then he slowly backed out of the compartment and closed the door.

The conversation continued for another hour before the train began to slow down, Harry quickly slipped his robe on over his dragon-hide coat and when the train finally stopped he and Hermione got off together. Harry told Scruffy to have a look around the grounds and then wait for the feast to end before quietly following them to their common room, Harry had decided that he would be in whichever house Hermione was in as she showed much potential as a friend and ally. As they stepped off the train they saw a large man gathering the first years together. The large man introduced himself as the gamekeeper Rubeus Hagrid _'Hagrid, why is that name so familiar?'_ **'Isn't he the one you gave the shaft to over the Chamber of Secrets incident?'** _'Ah yes, I remember him now. I can't believe Dumbledore let the oaf stick around.'_ **'Dumbledore is compassionate to a fault.'** Harry thought with a mental shrug. Hagrid led them to a group of boats down on the lake shore and told them to get into the boats. Harry and Hermione had a boat to themselves until Ron Weasley, apparently gaining confidence from Scruffy's absence, decided to join them. Harry and Hermione shared a quick look before mutually agreeing to just ignore the annoying ginger.

The boats reached the far side of the lake and Hagrid led them up into the Entrance Hall where they were handed of to Professor McGonagall who gave them a short speech about the houses and the sorting before leading them into a side chamber to wait. After leaving them to speculate about the sorting for a few minutes they were brought into the Great Hall and the Sorting Hat was placed on a stool in front of the line of first years. The Hat sang its typical song and then McGonagall started reading out a list of names. When she got to Hermione's name Hermione walked up to the stool and put the hat on, after only a couple of seconds the hat called out "RAVENCLAW" and Harry gave a sigh of relief before returning Hermione's smile as she made her way to the Ravenclaw table.

Eventually McGonagall got to "Potter, Harry" and Harry made his way to the Sorting Hat as he put it on his head he heard a quiet voice in his head "Ah what have we here, hmm what's this, a stowaway, you'll want to do something about that I think, but no matter where to put you." **I think we'll both find that Ravenclaw would be the best option.' **"Hmm, perhaps, yes you are quite suitable for Slytherin, but you are right in thinking it would only bring you trouble. You would stand up against the entire world to get justice, but you are not quite right for Gryfindor. No sense of loyalty at all, so Hufflepuff is out. I guess it will have to be..."

"RAVENCLAW."

**A/N: Sorry it took me so long to update, I had finals this week. I currently have the next two chapters already planned out so I'll get those done soon before switching back to one of my other fics. Just as a side note I've read I Am Atrocity's _Dawn of a Golden Age _and am reading DZ2's Anubis Rising, and while I think both are excellent part of the reason I decided to write this fic is because I felt that Harry and Tom really shouldn't get along as well as they do in those stories. The two really are incompatible and neither one should bend to the other so in this story they will be constantly at odds with each other as Harry begins to create and implement his plans. On another note the whole conversation about cards isn't just some random blurb about the difference between wizards and muggles and part of why I put it in is because the title of the fic comes from Harry's obsession with games.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any other associated characters or elements of the Harry Potter Universe.**

Harry made is way to the Ravenclaw table where he was immediately engulfed by a hug from Hermione. Harry could sense that Tom wanted to make a comment about Hermione but he wisely kept it to himself. As Harry took a seat next to Hermione he scanned the crowd to see how everyone had reacted to his sorting. The Slytherins appeared completely unfazed by the Boy-Who-Lived ending up in the House of the Wise. Most of Ravenclaw was still cheering and clapping, it had taken them a few seconds to overcome the shock of actually getting Harry Potter, so it was only expected that they would still be celebrating. The Hufflepuffs were clapping politely as they did for every new student, but the Gryfindors were an interesting mix of polite applause and what appeared to be heartbreak, Harry could swear that a few of them were on the verge of tears. The teachers were also an interesting collection of reactions most of the teachers were clapping politely, McGonagall had a slight frown but it was almost indistinguishable from her usual expression, the tiny Professor Flitwick looked like he might have a heart attack from excitement, Flitwick had been Head of Ravenclaw for more than half a century. The ancient Professor Vector who had started teaching Arithmancy when Tom had been a second year had a look of eager anticipation which confused Harry, until he realized that almost every Ravenclaw took at least one year of Arithmancy and almost every other house only had one or two people take Arithmancy. As Harry continued to scan the table he saw a face that he had not expected to see until he had hunted him down and was holding a knife to his throat, _Severus Snape_.

**'What is Dumbledore thinking letting a Death Eater teach? Has the old man finally lost all his marbles?'** _'Severus was always an able hand with potions.'_ **'He was also a cruel, petty, and vicious bastard, which was exactly why you let him join up in the first place.'** _'Quite true, not to mention that his... appetites make him highly unsuitable for any position that has him around teenagers.'_ **'If he tries to do anything to Hermione I will flay him alive and feed him his own flesh.'** Harry mentally growled _'Hmm you are quite protective of the girl, why do you suppose that is?' _**'She is a good friend, that is all there is to it, now drop it.'**

Returning his gaze to Severus the moment he made eye contact with the greasy snake he felt an attack being made on his mental defenses. Harry immediately forced Severus Snape from his mindscape, more for Snape's protection than his own, but not before sending a message to Snape along the connection. **'Ah ah ah, that is a very rude thing to do Severus. If you try it again I shall be forced to teach you some manners.'** Snape's already sallow skin paled even further and Harry let a small smile cross his face. A nervous looking man in a turban caught Harry's eye next, something about the man set Harry on edge, and deciding to take a chance Harry launched a subtle mental attack against the man. Harry soon realized that subtlety had been unnecessary as the man was weak minded and had no training in occlumency. The mans name was Quirenus Quirrel, he had been sent to Hogwarts on orders from Voldemort's shade to get the Philosopher's Stone, and he had brought the shade with him.

**'We will need to step up some of our plans, especially those concerning the horcrux here at Hogwarts.'**_ 'You still intend to follow your plan.'_** 'I have not seen anything yet to convince me I should not at least attempt it.'** _'So *she* will not interfere with the plan.'_ **'If she is willing I will bring her into the plan, but I will only wait until June to give her a choice.'** _'One school year is not a very long time to introduce someone to the Dark Arts.'_ **'Yes but if I wait to long then circumstances may change unfavorably. If she can be brought around she will be a valuable asset, I will simply need to be charming and persuasive. But first I must complete her training in occlumency.'**

Continuing along the staff table he finally came to Albus Dumbledore. As he looked at the headmaster Harry would have sworn that if they weren't a metaphor he would have been able to hear the gears grinding away inside the old man's head. Dumbledore clearly hadn't expected Harry to go into Ravenclaw, he had probably thought Harry would be in Gryfindor like his parents. Whatever the cause of Dumbledore's contemplations, Harry was quite certain they were not going to be helpful to him in the slightest. As Harry was finishing his sweep of the hall the sorting continued without any surprises, Ron Weasley joined the rest of the ginger brood at the Gryfindor table, and Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, Parkinson, and Bulstrode, all children of Death Eaters, were sorted into Slytherin. After the sorting Dumbledore gave a short speech, which only reinforced Harry's belief that the old man was no longer in complete control of all his mental faculties, and then the feast began. Harry and Hermione began a discussion with Penelope Clearwater, the fifth year girl prefect, about classes and professors. Harry was more interested in what she thought of the professors while Hermione wanted to know about what they would be learning in the different classes. Penelope was a wonderful source of information, she had no trouble expressing her opinions about teachers, most of whom were apparently excellent with the exceptions of Snape, who taught Potions, and Binns, a ghost who taught History of Magic. She also said that if either of them were thinking about taking Muggle Studies that they should forget about it as the curriculum was at least a century out of date. It turned out that Penelope was a muggleborn witch just like Hermione and this started them on a discussion about whether muggleborns were at a disadvantage in classes. The conclusion from the older students was that any disadvantage quickly disappeared and performance really came down to work ethic and effort after the first month.

After the feast was over Dumbledore made a few more announcements about school rules and informed everyone that the third floor corridor was out of bounds, this last announcement caused more than a few raised eyebrows, not least from Harry and Hermione. **'Probably where the Philosopher's Stone is hidden.'** Eventually they were dismissed for the evening and the Ravenclaw prefects led the new Ravenclaws to Ravenclaw Tower. On the way up to the tower Scruffy fell into step between Harry and Hermione. When they arrived at the entrance to the tower one of the Prefects gave the password "Eternity" and led them inside.

Penelope stepped in front of the first years and said "Welcome to Ravenclaw, this is the common room" she gestured to the room they were currently standing in, which contained a large number of blue chairs and couches "Upstairs is the Ravenclaw Library, while it does not have the same selection as the main library it does have copies of some of the more commonly asked for books which are reserved for Ravenclaws only. Downstairs are the dormitories, the girls are down that stairway on the left and the boys are down the staircase on the right. Each of you have been assigned an individual room so just look for the door with your name on it."

Harry gave Hermione a hug goodnight before he made his way down the boys staircase to find his room. Harry was glad to find out that his room was only two doors down from the stairs on the side of the hallway that faced out over the grounds. His room had a double bed with blue bedding a desk with its own bookshelf and chair, and a wardrobe. Harry found his trunk at the foot of his bed and began to unpack, he put all his books on the shelf above his desk and put his robes in the wardrobe. Last he pulled a wooden box and a thin black hooded sweatshirt out of his trunk and placed them on his bed. Harry took off this robe and trench coat before putting on the sweatshirt and putting the coat back on over it. The sweatshirt was a piece that he had made himself, it was enchanted so that when he put on the hood he would be hidden by a disillusionment charm and a notice-me-not charm. Picking up the wooden box and slipping it into one of the magically expanded pockets of his trench coat he pulled up the hood of his sweatshirt before exiting his room quietly and making his way back out of Ravenclaw Tower. He then made his way to an abandoned hallway on the seventh floor where he paced in front of a bare stretch of wall three times before a door appeared out of nowhere. Harry entered the door and found himself in a room full of pile after mountainous pile of junk. Harry followed an unmarked path through the piles until he found what he was looking for.

**'You know Tom, your arrogance never ceases to amaze me.'** _'What are you on about this time?'_ **'You chose to hide a piece of your soul here without any defenses.'** _'This place is well hidden no one can find it.'_ **'Riiiight, so where did all of this shit come from? Clearly you are not the first person to find the Room of Requirements and you definitely weren't the last. I mean how the hell did you come to the conclusion that you were the only one who had found this room when you hid your horcrux in a room full of a thousand years worth of students secrets that they hid here?"**

Leaving Tom to his sulking Harry placed the wooden box on the ground and opened it. He pulled out his ash wand and levitated a small silver tiara into the box. The moment Harry began to levitate the tiara he heard a whispering voice urging him to put the tiara on, ignoring the voice Harry closed the lid of the box and the whispering immediately stopped. The box had been designed to contain horcruxes, the outside was covered in binding runes and the inside was lined with lead plates to block any magic that originated inside the box. Taking the box with him Harry made his way back to his room where he hid the box in his trunk and went to bed.

The next morning Harry woke up and went up to the common room to find Hermione waiting for him. "Good morning Harry, how did you sleep?"

"Morning Hermione, I slept fine. Want to head down to breakfast?" Harry asked cheerily. Hermione nodded and they made their way down to the Great Hall in a companionable silence. When they got there Professor Flitwick handed them their class schedules. Harry glanced at his schedule and saw that the first class o the day was Potions. "Well I guess we'll get to see just how bad Snape is today." Harry said to Hermione pointing out their Potions lesson on their schedules. After a quick breakfast Harry led Hermione down to the dungeons where they had Potions lessons.

When they had taken their seats near the back of the classroom the rest of the Ravenclaws started making their way into the room. Shortly after everyone had taken a seat Snape came swooping into the room with his cloak billowing like the wings of a great bat. Snape immediately called roll and though he sneered when he read Harry's name he didn't comment on it. After a short speech about the _art _of potion making he set them to making a simple boil curing potion while he walked around snapping insults at anyone who made a mistake. Harry brewed his potion perfectly all the while staring defiantly at Snape, daring the man to make a remark about Harry's potion. Every time Snape passed Harry and Hermione's table he looked angry that he couldn't find anything to belittle them about and soon he just stopped looking at their patients. At the end of the lesson Harry and Hermione each placed a sample of their perfectly brewed potion on Snape's desk.

After Potions they had Charms and then Transfiguration. Charms was interesting and even though they didn't get started on anything in the class Flitwick's excitement about the class was infectious and everyone was looking forward to actually learning some magic. Transfiguration started off with a lecture from McGonagall about safety and proper behavior in class before she passed out matchsticks that they were to transfigure into needles. Harry was able to complete the transfiguration easily and after a couple of pointers Hermione completed it as well.

After Dinner that evening Hermione joined Harry in his room, boys weren't allowed in the girls' rooms and the common room was to noisy for what they were doing. Hermione was focusing on organizing her memories again and had insisted that Harry be there to stop her if she was going to long. About fifteen minutes after she had started she came out of her meditation.

"Harry I think I've got all my memories sorted. What's next?" Hermione said drawing Harry's attention from the book he had been reading.

"Well next you decide where you want to put your library. It needs to be somewhere the library wouldn't stick out, otherwise if someone came across it they would know that they had found your memories. The place also has to be big enough to hide other places where you could keep your memories and it would be best if it was easily defended." Harry explained.

"Could you give me an example?" Hermione asked after a few moments.

"I guess I could show you my mindscape so you get an idea." Harry sat down on the bed with his legs crossed and looked at Hermione "Alright look straight into my eyes." The moment she complied with his instructions he sent a mental probe forward and suddenly he was standing in a grand library. The library was at least three stories tall and every shelf was full of books, more books than Harry could ever imagine reading. And there standing behind the librarians desk was Hermione, well it wasn't exactly Hermione, this Hermione was a little taller, her hair was curly rather than bushy, and when she smiled upon seeing Harry her teeth were perfect and straight instead of having front teeth that were to large for her. This was a mental projection of Hermione, not as she was but as she saw herself. "Do all these books contain memories?" Harry asked taken aback at the sheer size of the library.

"No, I built the library a little to big and I had to put in a lot of empty books to fill all of the shelves, most of these books are empty." Hermione said blushing a little at the thought of her overestimation of her memories.

Harry shrugged at this "That isn't necessarily a bad thing, if someone found their way in here it would take them longer to find what they were looking for. Here take my hand and I'll show you my mindscape." Hermione stepped out from behind the desk and took Harry's hand. With a slight concentration on his own mind there was a rushing sensation and soon they were standing in front of a hedge maze. Without letting go of Hermione's hand Harry started off into the hedge maze and following a carefully memorized route he led her through the maze.

"How do you find your way through the maze so easily?" Hermione asked after they made it out the other side.

"The route is a password in Morse Code dots are left dashes are right." Harry answered honestly.

"What's the password?"

"I can't go giving you all of my secrets can I? From here on out don't touch anything, there are some pretty nasty things hidden here and I wouldn't want them to get hold of you." Harry said as he walked forward, after a short walk they came upon a huge manor house.

"That's where you hid your memories? It's gigantic." Hermione said awestruck.

"Yeah I guess it is, inside there are one hundred and seven rooms, inside one room is a secret doorway that leads to an underground passage that leads to my office, but one of the rooms is a library and it is well guarded and locked tight so anyone coming in would spend all their time focusing on the library and never even find the office. You get the idea of what you need now?" Hermione just nodded unable to think of anything to say as she considered the sheer scale of the house.

The next two weeks were pretty boring, Harry had no trouble keeping up in classes and Hermione was always a close second in performance. Every night Harry and Hermione would work on occlumency in Harry's room. Hermione had decided to build a castle in her mind and every night she would show what she had completed to Harry. Harry had never been happier in his life, the more time he spent with Hermione the more time he wanted to spend with her, he could finally say he had a friend and he never wanted to lose that, to lose _her_. At the end of the second week Harry woke up from a strange dream that he could only vaguely remember, he knew it had something to do with Hermione, but he didn't know what. Deciding that he needed to clear his head Harry decided to go to the common room, when he got there he sat on a chair by the fire place and just sat and thought for a while. A few minutes after Harry sat down there was a creaking from the girls' stairs and Harry looked over to see Hermione coming up into the common room.

"Hey Harry, what are you doing up?" Hermione asked, barely stifling a yawn.

"Couldn't sleep, weird dreams. You?"

"The same." Hermione admitted taking a seat in the chair next to Harry. After a couple of minutes Hermione spoke again "Harry, have you ever had an idea pop into your head and... you have no idea where it came from, but the more you think about it the more sense it makes."

"Not that I can think of, Why?" Harry said after a moment to think.

"Because I have an idea that I can't get out of my head, it keeps telling me to do something, and the more I think about the more I want to go along with it." Hermione said standing up and moving in front of Harry.

"What is it telling you to do?" Harry asked a little concerned.

"This." Hermione said before leaning in and kissing Harry. The moment their lips touched Harry and Hermione felt like they were standing to close to high voltage wires as a buzz of power passed through them which made their hair stand on end. In the dim light of the common room they couldn't help but notice the golden threads of light that wrapped their way around them. As the kiss broke Harry put his arms around Hermione and pulled her down onto his lap not wanting to lose the contact with her.

As they sat there to stunned to do anything the entrance to the common room opened and Professor Flitwick entered the room. When he spotted them sitting there he walked over and spoke to them in a calm voice that was a little strange coming from the normally exuberant professor. "Mr. Potter Miss Granger please follow me." They stood up not letting go of each other as the diminutive professor led them to a large portrait that stood opposite the fireplace. The professor touched his hand to the side of the portrait and it swung open like a door and they were ushered inside. Inside the room was a smaller version of the common room built for two people and across from where they had entered was another door, Flitwick opened this door and gestured for them to go inside "It is late and you had better get some sleep, we will need to speak tomorrow so come to my office after breakfast." Inside the room was a king side bed and without thinking Harry and Hermione climbed into the bed and promptly fell asleep.

While Harry slept he had the strangest dreams he was watching as a small girl was picked on by other children. As he watched he realized that the little girl was Hermione and the more he watched the more he wished that he could stop the other children from tormenting her. Then he watched her go home to a house she shared with strangers. It wasn't that her parents were bad people, or even bad parents, they were just busy, and as Hermione got older and she started having more magical outbursts they couldn't understand her. By the time Hermione's Hogwarts letter had arrived they would go weeks without speaking to each other. Hermione was alone so much of the time that all she could do to keep away the loneliness was bury herself in books, to try to run away from the truth and hide in the world of the printed word. And then the dream shifted and Harry saw Hermione walking alone through King's Cross station, her parents had dropped her off but hadn't walked her into the station. Then she was on the Hogwarts Express looking for a place to sit and then he saw her find his compartment and he could feel her emotions as they began to talk about a whole range of meaningless topics, and after watching her grow up alone he realized just how much his acceptance of Hermione had meant to her, and he swore to himself that he would never abandon her.

The next morning Harry woke up to find Hermione snuggled up to him and he had his arms wrapped around her protectively. Moments after Harry had awoken Hermione woke up as well, while neither of them knew why they had fallen asleep in the same they both knew it felt right. As they sat up they saw that Scruffy had curled himself up at their and was watching them with a goofy grin that only a dog could pull off. Having simply fallen asleep as soon as they entered the room the night before they took the opportunity to look around the room, it looked like a larger version of the other Ravenclaw dormitories, it had two desks sitting next to each other and against the opposite wall were two wardrobes. What was strange though was that the desk on the left was exactly how he had left his own desk the books on the shelf above it were even in the exact same order as they had been in his room. Without a word they both got out of the bed and got dressed in uniforms from the wardrobes, and Harry was further surprised to find his trench coat hanging up in one of the wardrobes. They then walked out of the bedroom into the first room and back into the Ravenclaw common room before heading down to the Great Hall for breakfast, neither one of them noticing that they were holding hands the entire way there. After getting some breakfast they headed up to Professor Flitwick's office, when they knocked on the door his squeaky voice called them in.

"Mr. Potter, Miss Granger, I needed to speak to you this morning about the events of last night." Flitwick began, when he saw the look of concern on Hermione's face he quickly continued "You are not in trouble Miss Granger, but because of what happened last night some changes will need to be made in your arrangements here at Hogwarts."

"Professor, what did happen last night?" Hermione asked timidly, not sure if she would sound foolish for not understanding what had happened.

"Last night you and Mr. Potter formed a soul-bond." Flitwick explained looking at both of the students "I assume that neither of you is aware of what a soul-bond is."

Hermione shook her head, but Harry answered "I've seen them referenced in a couple of books, but they didn't say much about them."

"Well a soul-bond is a deep and permanent connection that forms between two people whose magical cores are as close to perfectly compatible as possible. This bond literally binds the two individuals souls together, as such it is considered to be the equivalent of a legal marriage." Flitwick let his words sink in for a few moments.

"How did this happen though?" Hermione asked

"Well, the bond was formed when you two kissed last night, now while you two were always highly compatible, magically speaking, the bond could not form until you both had subconsciously accepted the other and had developed a base of trust and companionship upon which the bond could form. In fact unless I am very much mistaken I would think that the two of you were pushed by your magic into finally kissing last night, you see your magic recognized in each other the beginning of that bond and knew that you would both accept the result of that bond or the bond would not have formed last night, it would have waited until you both were ready, do you understand?" Harry and Hermione both nodded, so Flitwick continued "Now, while soul-bonds are uncommon they happen often enough that there are already procedures that the school will because of the bond, you two are in fact the eighth couple I have seen become soul-bonded in my time as head of Ravenclaw. Certain changes will need to be made, first of all you will now be sharing the Ravenclaw marriage quarters, which is the rooms I put you in last night, and you will need to set a password for the entrance. Secondly over the next few hours the bond will continue to strengthen and by the end of the day it will have increased to the point where the two of you will be able to communicate telepathically as the bond connects your minds, as such your school work will now be done collaboratively as you would end up handing in work that would be a subconscious collaboration anyways and your exams will be taken together. Now one other effect of the bond is that both of you will experience a slight increase in your magical power."

"How slight?" Harry asked, wondering just how much more power he would have at his disposal.

"Well, are you both familiar with the Emrys Scale?" Harry and Hermione both nodded "Good, when you completed the first charms you learned in my class your results were evaluated and recorded in your medical files in case there was a need to see if any injury had an effect on your magical core, now you Mr. Potter scored an impressive 73 on the Emrys Scale and Miss Granger scored a 65, both of you were well above the expected first year average of 50, now though your cores have strengthened each other and you will both have increased your scores. What little research has been done suggests that the end result of the increase will put both of you at a level equal to Mr. Potter's higher score plus ten percent of Miss Granger's lower score, so a 79 or 80. Most likely you will both reach the adult average of 100 sometime in your third year and will likely be two of the strongest magic users of your generation. Now do either of you have any other questions?"

"You said that a soul-bond was equivalent to a legal marriage, so does that mean we are married, or that we aren't." Hermione asked

"Legally you are married with only one minor exception, unless Harry were to marry someone else you would be considered his wife in all instances. As such your legal name is now actually Hermione Potter." Flitwick explained.

"Wait Harry could marry someone else, how is that right?" Hermione was more than a little irked at the thought of _her _Harry marrying another girl.

"Most of the old families didn't like the idea of a soul-bond getting in the way of political marriages. So the way the laws are written until a legal marriage is completed the witch is officially the wizard's 'consort' not his wife, and as such the wizard could still be forced into a political marriage." Harry explained recalling the section he had read in an old book on magical law. "Once an actual marriage occurs the exception goes away. Now if I remember correctly the earliest you can get married in the magical world is at fourteen, so if your not busy on July 31, 1994 we could get married 'officially' then."

"Do you really mean that Harry?" Hermione asked with tears forming in her eyes.

"Of course I mean it Hermione, you are the best thing that ever happened to me, and I am looking forward to spending the rest of my life with you." Harry told her pulling her into a hug.

Flitwick had to take a moment to compose himself before he spoke "Now I am sure you two will need some time to talk in private, however I should mention that it is not uncommon for soul-bonded couples to dream each others memories for the first few nights, so it would be a good idea for you two to share any secrets you may not have shared already as they won't remain secret for long."

Twenty minutes later Harry and Hermione were laying down on their new bed when Hermione finally asked the question that had been bugging her since she had realized that the dreams she had had the night before had actually been Harry's memories "Harry, that day when you were nine and you had ended up on the roof, what... what happened to you? One minute you looked like you were going to die, and then suddenly when you wake up the next morning you suddenly go off and get a wand and then you went home and you... you..." She couldn't get the words out.

"That night, my uncle nearly killed me, I actually would have died if it weren't for one little side effect of my defeat of Voldemort. You see Voldemort had put a lot of effort into becoming immortal, and one of the things he did was rip his soul to pieces and leave pieces of his soul in objects called horcruxes. When he died his soul was so fragile that a piece broke off and turned me into a horcrux. That night the horcrux activated in order to prevent its own destruction, saving my life in the process. When it activated the piece of Voldemort's soul became part of my soul, so I gained all of Voldemort's knowledge and an annoying voice in my head that wants me to take over the world in the most genocidal way possible. I call him Tom because it pisses him off."

"So what, now you are going to take up where he left off?"

"No, I have no intention of following in his footsteps, but I have realized that I have to do something with all that knowledge. Those horcruxes prevent him from dieing, so he will eventually come back. Before he does I intend to weaken his support structure and destroy most, if not all of his horcruxes. And then I will do what I have to to make sure that Britain stops being a breeding ground for dark lords and blood supremacists."

"And how are you going to do that? Just murder and torture everyone who gets in your way?" Hermione was almost on the verge of tears.

"Not everyone, no. Hermione you have to understand something, when Voldemort was in power he had an inner circle of eighteen three died in battle, and four were sent to prison for torturing two well respected purebloods into insanity, the other eleven are all free because despite being arrested they bought off politicians and there was no public outcry because the only known victims were muggles and muggleborns. Those eleven are unrepentant killers all, and as long as they are allowed to walk free the world will not be able to move on from Voldemort's reign of terror. All but one or two will return to him without hesitation and they must not be allowed to do that."

"So you're going to use the dark arts to kill them? Harry the dark arts are evil."

"No they aren't, the dark arts are dangerous, absolutely, but they are not evil. The dark arts draw their power from anger, from fear, and from all the other negative emotions that make up the darker side of the human experience, and just as those emotions are not evil neither are the dark arts."

"But what about the unforgivable curses..."

"They aren't dark, they're black, there is a massive difference between dark magic and black magic. Dark magic is negative and destructive, but black magic is pure evil. Tom thinks I'm a fool for refusing to use black magic but there is a line even I won't cross. So yes I will use the dark arts, but only on those who have earned the punishment they will receive."

"Harry violence doesn't solve anything." Hermione said finally running out of arguments but unwilling to admit that Harry really was right.

"Hermione, you are a brilliant girl, you have your own thoughts, it's part of what I love about you, so please don't insult your own intelligence by parroting the idiocy of idealists. History is rife with examples of violence solving problems from the Carthaginians to the Communists there have been thousands of people who have refused to let others live in peace and the only way to stop the is to strike back with everything you have. I didn't start this war, but if I hold back it will never end, any victory will merely be a respite before someone else comes along and starts a new war. In the last nine generations every dark lord to rise in Europe has had the financial backing of a Malfoy, they've had Crabbes, Goyles, Averys, Notts, and Lestranges on their front lines and that won't change as long as those families continue to exist."

"Alright Harry, but if your going to do this... I want to help you. I want you to teach me everything you know and I want to be at your side through all of it." Hermione finally said with a determined look in her eyes.

"Very well, your training will begin immediately, but I have to warn you, once we get started there is no turning back."

**A/N: There we have the soul-bonding of Harry and Hermione, I hope you enjoyed. Next chapter Harry shows Hermione how they are getting rid of the horcruxes, hopefully you all like the way I came up with to do it.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

It took only two weeks for Harry to teach Hermione everything he knew. Part of this was due to Hermione's amazing ability to retain new information, and part of it was due to the fact that Harry was able to pass on most of his knowledge through their rapidly developing mental connection. Only a couple of days after the soul-bond had formed Harry and Hermione had been able to have entire conversations in their heads and it was when they first discovered this that Hermione was properly introduced to Tom.

_'So you are the mudblood young Potter has decided to further taint his bloodline with.'_ 'And I guess you are the worthless coward who has caused Harry so much trouble. I don't care who you were Tom all you are now is a mouthy leech who has out lived his usefulness, I will not rest until I find a way to destroy you Tom.' _'I will not be spoken to in such a manner by one who is unworthy to lick my boots!'_ 'You will be spoken to however I damn well please to speak to you. You have no power here and you never will, so you had better learn to watch your tongue or I will rip what little remains of you to bloody shreds.' **'I do believe I told you to behave yourself Tom, and this is most certainly not acceptable behavior.'** Harry thought with finality before launching a mental attack against Tom's presence in his mind causing the shadow of the former dark lord pain that went far beyond anything a physical body could experience.

One of the side effects of a soul-bond between two powerful people is that the individual with the weaker magical core will begin to take on physical characteristics of the stronger individual. By the time Hermione had finished her training her hair had grown darker and her once brown eyes were now hazel. When they went to ask Professor Flitwick about it he had explained that it was not uncommon for soul-bonded couples to end up looking alike, and that in all likelihood Hermione's hair and eyes would match Harry's in color by Christmas.

On the last day of September Harry and Hermione were sitting at breakfast when a package arrived delivered by a large barn owl. Harry examined the package but did not open it. **'Are you done with your breakfast Hermione?'** 'Yes, what's in the package?' **'Come with me and I'll show you.'** and without a word spoken aloud the two stood up in perfect unison and walked out of the Great Hall. Harry led the way to an unused classroom on the second floor that was away from most of the major routes taken by students.

Harry handed the package to Hermione "Sorry it's late, but Happy Birthday." Harry had found out when Hermione's birthday was from seeing her memories in his dreams, but even though he had ordered her present immediately it had only just arrived. "Actually I guess it's a Birthday and Graduation present. You have done an amazing job learning everything Hermione and I'm really proud of you."

"Thanks Harry, what did you get me?" Hermione asked looking longingly at the package.

"Open it and find out." Harry told her eager to see what she thought.

As Hermione opened the package she caught a glimpse of what looked like black leather. When she got it completely open she saw that it was a coat just like Harry's. "Wow, Harry this must have cost a fortune. You didn't need to get me something this expensive."

"Of course I did Hermione, aside from the fact that I'm sure you'll look amazing in it it will keep you safe, and nothing is more important than keeping you safe. Now what are you waiting for try it on." Hermione removed her outer robe and put the coat on over the rest of her uniform. It immediately shrank to fit her and she did a quick spin to show it to Harry. "See I knew you'd look great in it, but put your robe on over it, we need to get to class."

Ten minutes later Harry was sitting next to Hermione in Transfiguration waiting for McGonagall to begin the class. Once McGonagall began her lecture Harry began a mental conversation with Hermione, because of all the knowledge that they had received from Tom they only needed to pay enough attention to know when the teacher was asking questions so they usually had silent conversations during all of their classes. **'Hermione, for the last couple of days you've been wanting to ask me something. Why don't you just ask?'** 'Alright, Harry I was wondering when we are going to get started with eliminating Riddle's inner circle.' **'Soon Hermione. I think that Halloween would be as good a night as any to start. Before that though we need to do something else though.'** 'What else do we need to do?' **'Well, while we know more about magic than most adults we would still be at a disadvantage during any fight, we need to become stronger, faster if we want to be able to fight back.'** 'I guess that makes sense, but even with all the books we have nothing will have work fast enough to have us ready by Halloween unless we go with black magic, and you promised...' **'And I have no intention of touching the black, but there are things out there that could give us want we want.'** 'Yes but they will want something in trade.' **'And we have something to trade.'** 'What could we possibly trade?' **'You will see Angel. Saturday is the full moon, be ready to sneak out of the castle at twilight.'**

Saturday came quickly and soon Harry was leading Hermione out of the castle onto the grounds. Making sure that no one could see them Harry began to lead them toward the Forbidden Forest, when they arrived at the edge of the forest they were met by Scruffy.

"Hey boy, did you find a good place?" Harry asked while Hermione scratched Scruffy behind the ears. Scruffy gave a short bark of affirmative before turning around to lead them into the forest.

"So what exactly are we going to use Harry? It's not like we have any spare virgins." Hermione asked as they trekked deeper into the forest.

"No we are running quite short on disposable virgins, and virgins aren't something I feel up to using as currency. No we are going to trade something that we really want to get rid of anyways, the horcrux." Harry explained, being careful to keep his eyes on Scruffy.

"What could we possibly trade the horcrux to, and why would they want it?" Hermione asked, she was loosely aware of what Harry intended to do tonight, but she had not done enough research on the subject to make conclusions.

"Because we possess a piece of his soul we can trade that piece of soul. Whatever we trade it to will have a claim to any other piece that is released from containment on this plane." Harry explained carefully. As Harry was explaining this Scruffy led them into a clearing in the forest. The sun had already set, and although the full moon would already be up it was not yet high enough to light the clearing. Harry immediately set the bag he had been carrying on the ground and took off his coat, folding it and laying it at the edge of the clearing. He then took off his shirt, folded it and placed it on top of his coat.

"Harry, what are you doing?" Hermione asked turning away from Harry to hide her blush.

"We have to leave everything outside of the circle or it could corrupt the ritual." Harry explained while he removed his shoes.

"Oh. Everything?"

"Yep, everything. We wouldn't want to screw this up and accidentally call up some arcane horror from outside of reality which would proceed to rip us apart with its giant tentacles."

"Fine, just promise not to laugh." Hermione finally capitulated begin to remove her own clothes. Soon they were both standing naked looking at each other.

"As much as I would love to just stay like this all night, we need to get started." Harry finally said breaking the silence that had filled the clearing.

Harry went back to his bag and began to pull out everything they would need. First he handed Hermione a dozen white candles, taking a dozen for himself. Harry checked a compass and found the northern side of the clearing. Harry began to place the candles in a circle going clockwise around the circle starting a the northernmost point. Once the candles were placed he took a silver dagger and pricked his finger and let a single drop of blood fall on the northernmost candle. Immediately the candles were all lit by some unseen force. Harry went to the center of the circle of light and waited for Hermione to repeat his actions. Once the two rings of candles were alight Harry took out a bag of white sand and poured it out to form a circle four feet in diameter. As he finished the circle he let another drop of blood fall on the sand and he felt a hum of power as an invisible barrier formed around the circle. Then Harry took out the box which contained the horcrux he had removed from the Room of Requirements. Placing the horcrux on the opposite side of the circle from where he had just laid down the white sand circle he then proceeded to make another ring of sand around the horcrux, again letting a drop of blood fall on the circle. As Harry finished this Hermione was just finishing laying down her own ring of sand just inside the inner ring of candles, which she to activated with a drop of blood.

When they were all done with their preparations the moon had just reached the top of the trees, flooding the clearing with moonlight. Harry and Hermione took up position in the center of the clearing holding hands facing the empty circle. Scruffy took up a patrol just outside the rings of candles, his eyes constantly watching the dark forest for potential threats.

"So what exactly are we calling up?" Hermione asked as they waited for the moon to move into the proper position.

"It's a hunter spirit. A force of nature given thought and voice."

"Does it have a name?"

"It predates human thought, so I'm thinking no. If it does have a name it won't be something that can be pronounced by a human tongue."

"And you really think it's a good idea to hand the soul of Lord Voldemort over to this thing? What the hell is it going to do with a soul?"

"Probably sell it off to something that can use souls properly. Nothing to bad will come of it, I highly doubt this spirit will trade it off to Azathoth or any of the other being of the outer planes. Most likely it'll get traded to some up and coming demon prince trying rearrange the power structure of hell."

"Couldn't that be bad though, I mean giving a soul of that much power to a demon of any sort can't be good for humanity."

"Infernal politics hardly ever splash over to the mortal plane. Besides, where the hell did you think Voldemort would end up. It's about time I think.

Harry began to speak holding his right hand up palm facing the circle "Great Hunter I call to you, come forth and speak with he who calls you. Hunter in Darkness I call upon you, come forth and entreat with he who brings you forth. Thrice I call and done, Spirit of the Wild Hunt come forth and converse with me."

Suddenly sparks erupted from the ground inside the empty circle and began to coalesce into a towering form. The form was vaguely human in shape, but that is where the similarities ended. It stood upright on the hind legs of a wolf but its torso was more proportionate to that of a bear. Its arms and hands were much more human but they had long wicked looking claws. Its head was like that of a lion except that it had the curling horns of a ram and its eyes looked to be made of living flames.

"Who calls me forth?" The form demanded in voice that sounded like thunder.

"I have called thee forth Venator In Tenebris, I seek to bargain with thee for power, strength, and speed, in exchange for the soul of a man of great evil and power." Harry said as confidently as he could manage.

The spirit looked at Harry for a few moments, sizing up the small boy, "You show true promise, Child of Shadow. You have the heart of a true hunter, but do not think that I am easily fooled. What you have placed before me does not contain an entire soul, it is broken, torn asunder. Yet even in its broken state it would be worth quite a bounty." It spoke these last words mostly to itself.

"It is our intention to release the rest of this soul from mortality, but if you are not interested in laying claim to it, then surely there are others who would want it." Harry said calmly.

"No, I would gladly take it off your hands. Do you speak for your mate as well child?"

"In this matter we speak as one."

"Very well, the entire soul is worth three boons, with this piece I will grant you the first, upon delivery of the third piece I will grant a second, and when the last piece is mine a third and final boon shall be yours."

"That is only fair, what are these three boons you would grant us?"

"Hmm, let me see... you seek knowledge, power... your forms are weak, I can make them stronger... the beast within calls for release... what else... ah yes you would do well with the secret. Very well, here is what I shall offer you, first I shall perfect your bodies, take away your weakness and make you true hunters, second I shall teach you to commune with your inner beast, make you what you would call animagus, and third I will tell you how to open the Vault of Alexandria."

"Then I Harry James Potter on my own behalf and on behalf of Hermione Jean Potter do offer the first piece of the soul of Thomas Marvolo Riddle in exchange for three boons, agreed upon by both parties, the first to be delivered immediately, the second to be delivered upon the release of the third piece and the third to be delivered upon the release of the _sixth_ piece. Do you accept this bargain spirit?"

''Harry are you sure it's a good idea to try playing games with this thing. I wouldn't want to piss it off.' **'Don't worry Hermione, beings like this respect cunning bargainers, and most likely the change to the deal won't even matter.' **'Alright, but what is the Vault of Alexandria? I would have thought the third boon would have been the most valuable.' **'Oh it is the most valuable. The Vault was hidden beneath the Great Library of Alexandria, it is a stockpile of some of the rarest books and most powerful relics known to mankind. Rumor has it the last known copy of the Necronomicon is hidden there, along with the complete works of Merlin and Morgan LeFay.'** 'I thought the Necronomicon was a myth.' **'You also used to think magic was a myth.'** 'Touche'

"I accept your bargain Harry James Potter." And with that a flash of blue light filled the clearing as the bargain was sealed. Harry nodded to Hermione and she walked over to the circle with the horcrux in it while Harry walked to the edge of the circle that contained the spirit. On an unspoken cue they both kicked some of the sand away breaking the circles. The spirit walked to the horcrux with an inhuman, loping gait and picked up the horcrux. The moment it touched the horcrux it flashed black and vanished. "And now for my part of the bargain." With a blinding flash the spirit vanished from the clearing and Harry and Hermione collapsed to the round unconscious. When they woke up the moon had already set behind the trees and the clearing was again dark. Dressing quickly, Harry and Hermione began to make their way back to the castle with Scruffy leading the way through the dark forest.

When they woke up the next morning they finally had a chance to examine what changes had resulted from the bargain they had struck. The most obvious change was Hermione's hair, where there had once been a bushy untamed mess there were now soft curls. Harry realized that his eyesight had been fixed as he could see perfectly but hadn't put his glasses on. They were both a couple inches taller, but Harry had grown slightly more and was now as tall as Hermione when before he had been two inches shorter than her. As they got dressed they both discovered that they had more muscle definition, and when Hermione smiled Harry pointed out that her teeth were straight now. Harry quickly transfigured his glasses so they were just clear glass and placed a slight glamour on Hermione's teeth son no one would notice the sudden change, they could remove it over break and no one would notice the difference. There wasn't much they could do about their change in height so they would just need to slouch for a couple of weeks to not draw attention to the change.

Over the next few weeks they made preparations for their special Halloween plans, they had decided that they would begin with Walden Macnair, after all the sadistic bastard definitely had it coming and he lived alone so he could easily be taken down without a fight.

The first thing they did was sneak out of the castle early on a Saturday morning to get Hermione an unregistered wand of her own. Much to Harry's surprise she got a wand that was almost identical to his own ash and dragon wand, in fact the wand-maker said that the materials had come from the same tree and dragon, the only real difference was that Hermione's wand was a half-inch shorter.

A week before Halloween they had to change all of their plans, during an examination of Quirrel's mind to determine if he was any closer to making a move to take the Stone Harry discovered that Quirrel planned to let a troll into the school on Halloween as a distraction to examine the Stone's defenses.

"We need an excuse for not being at the feast on Halloween, it was one thing to not be there when nothing was going to happen, but with a troll in the school someone will definitely notice that neither of us is at the feast." Harry said trying to come up with some way to get out of the school without arousing suspicions.

"Well, I could tell Flitwick that you don't want to go to the feast, after all it is the tenth anniversary of your parents' deaths, not something you want to go to a feast to be reminded of." Hermione supplied after a few moments of thought.

"Alright, but someone will probably check on us once Quirrel makes a scene, most likely they'll just send everyone to their common rooms so only one of us will need to be here. I'll figure something out while you talk to Flitwick."

In the end Harry decided to set up a ward to alert them when someone tried to enter their quarters, and a pair of portkeys that would take them either to their bedroom or to the other portkey. Flitwick was very understanding and had no problem with Harry and Hermione missing the feast.

So it was that while everyone else was making their way down to the feast Harry and Hermione were sneaking down to a secret passage that led to the basement of the candy store in the nearby village. As soon as they were past the school wards Harry apparated them to Macnair's London home. They were easily able to bypass the simple wards he had set up to protect himself and gain entry to the home. When they entered the home they found that Macnair was not yet home from his job at the Ministry so they sat down to wait for him. An hour after they had arrived Macnair finally returned and the moment he closed the door he was hit by a pair of stunners.

Walden Macnair awoke to a severe headache to find himself hanging from the ceiling by his wrists, naked, standing in front of him were Harry and Hermione. "Potter, what are you doing here?"

"Good your finally awake. I am here to deal with some old business Mr. Macnair, to settle some old debts." Harry said, his tone icy.

"And what does that have to do with me?"

"Well Mr. Macnair I want to send a message."

"And who am I supposed to deliver this message to?"

"Oh, you misunderstand Mr. Macnair, you won't be delivering the message, you _are _the message. Walden Macnair you are guilty of 47 counts of murder, 109 counts of torture, and 117 counts of rape. For these crimes the only punishment can be death." Harry pronounced "Hermione, would you like to do the honors?"

"Of course Harry, after what he did to all those little girls it's only appropriate." Hermione said with a smile pulling out her new wand.

"Please don't kill me," Macnair begged "I'll do anything you want, just don't kill me."

Hermione walked up so that her mouth was inches from Macnair's ear and whispered "Scream for me." Macnair's blood ran cold, he remembered every single time he had whispered that very same thing to a girl just as he was about to have his way with her. He realized right then that he would not survive this night.

Hermione began by casting a pair of bludgeoning hexes to dislocate Macnair's shoulders, the way he was hanging insured that he would be in agony from those two blows until the moment he died. "I really don't understand why anyone would want to use the cruciatus curse to torture someone, it's so unoriginal." Hermione made small talk as she used a series of bone breaking hexes to shatter all the bones in Macnair's feet. "People seem to think it proves they're evil. All it really proves is that they are unimaginative." She pulled out a knife that had been treated with a potion that caused it to automatically cauterize any wound and began to make small slices on Macnair's back, every cut was agony as it was burned closed. At this point Hermione had to stop talking as no one would be able to hear her over Macnair's screams. She moved around to the front and looked Macnair up and down before deciding what to do next. She took the knife and used it to castrate the Death Eater, and Macnair's screams reached a new intensity. Hermione quickly cast a silencing charm on Macnair "Shh, if you keep screaming like that you'll get a sore throat." She told him sweetly before removing the silencing charm. Hermione then took her wand and proceeded to cast a series of low powered flame charms, covering Macnair's chest in little burns until Macnair had screamed himself hoarse. "Does that hurt? Here let me see if I can make it better _Aquementi_." and a stream of ice cold water blasted into his scalded flesh with the force of a fire hose cause fresh agony to erupt.

At this point Harry's watch started to beep, the alarm ward had been tripped and one of them would need to return to their room to send away whoever was checking on them. "Hermione, someone's coming to check on us, do you want me to finish up, or should I save him for you?"

"It'll probably take me just a moment so wait for me to get back." Hermione told him giving Harry a quick kiss before activating her portkey. True to her word Hermione returned a couple of moments later "Apparently the feast had only gotten started when Quirrel made his move so everyone is eating in the common room. We should make an appearance." Harry nodded in agreement and drew a knife of his own and swiftly cut Macnair's femoral artery. He then took out a playing card and used a sticking charm to attach it to Macnair's chest. He then Used his wand to burn a message into the wall behind Macnair. Then taking Hermione's hand they returned to Hogwarts.

Kingsley Shacklebolt looked at the sight in front of him, Walden Macnair had clearly been tortured before he had been murdered. He quickly pushed away every thought about how grizzly the sight before him was and began his clinical analysis. He cast a quick _finite_ to remove the playing card stuck to the corpse's chest.

"The king of knives?" His partner John Dawlish asked looking at the card over Kingsley's shoulder "Is that supposed to represent the killer or the victim?"

"Based on that," Kingsley gestured to the wall behind Macnair "I would think it's the killer."

Dawlish looked at the wall "_The King sits in judgment_. Why do I get the feeling this is just the beginning."

**A/N: And there we have Harry and Hermione's first murder, and it most certainly won't be their last. Right now I plan on making both Harry and Hermione's animagus form a wolf, but if someone comes up with a really good idea before I get to the point of making the final decision I just might use it.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.**

_**Ministry of Magic Employee Brutally Murdered**_

_Rita Skeeter_

_Last night long-time employee of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, Walden Macnair, was brutally tortured and murdered in his London home. Last night also marked the ten year anniversary of the death of He Who Must Not Be Named, though investigators are unsure if there is any connection between this murder and the former Dark Lord. aurors assigned to the case were unwilling to make any statements about the crime though a trusted source inside the DMLE mentioned that investigators are referring to the unknown killer as 'The King of Knives' after a playing card left on the body. Is Mr. Macnair's death just a simple case of murder or is it the beginning of something all together more sinister?_

Harry sat his copy of the Daily Prophet on the table. '**Look Hermione, we made the front page. I wonder how long it will take them to figure out what is going on?'** 'No idea, if the last war is any indication aurors aren't very good at their jobs. And it's not like we left many clues behind, at least not magical ones, and I highly doubt they have any real knowledge of forensics.' **'True enough, though I was referring to them figuring out why we chose Macnair, not who we are. I doubt they'll ever get close enough to pin anything on us.'** 'True, so who's next, and when do we strike?' **'Avery would be a good next choice, he was a known Death Eater and bribed his way out of Azkaban. And since we killed Macnair on Halloween I think we should continue to use magically significant dates, so the winter solstice should be next. Also I think we should try to get to the ring and the locket over the Christmas holidays.'** 'Okay, do you plan on staying in the castle for the holidays? Because I was planning on going home for Christmas originally, but if you're staying...' **'Hermione if you want to go home for Christmas you should. I probably won't stay at the castle anyways, I'd need to get out multiple times for indeterminate lengths of time, so I'll probably get a room at the Leaky Cauldron.'** 'Harry you are not going to spend Christmas alone in an inn. I'll just write to my parents and tell them you're staying with us for the holidays.' Harry didn't respond immediately and Hermione could feel his apprehension at the thought of meeting her family 'Harry we'll have to tell them eventually, we might as well get it over with sooner rather than later.' **'I guess it'll be better than staying at the Cauldron.'**

For the next week and a half the Daily Prophet raised questions about the ability of the auror force to do their jobs as they had yet to develop any real leads in the Macnair case. Every day there was more outcry for improvements in law enforcement which culminated in questions about why the Minister of Magic, Cornelius Fudge, had let the DMLE fall to pieces under his watch. That was the last time the Macnair case was mentioned in the Prophet.

November passed quickly for Harry and Hermione, they were the top of all of their classes and because they were turning in combined homework assignments they had plenty of free time. They spent most of their extra time doing research into various aspects of magic that they thought would be useful. In late November Harry finally decided to bring up the results of one of his research topics with Hermione.

"Hermione, you remember how Flitwick said that our scores on the Emrys Scale were above average?" Harry asked turning his desk chair to face Hermione, who was lying on their bed reading.

"Yes, he said something about being as powerful as the average adult wizard by the end of our third year." Hermione said marking her place in the book before closing it and turning her full attention to Harry.

"Well I've done some research on soul-bonds, magical cores and the Emrys Scale, and at the time, with the information Flitwick had it was an accurate, if somewhat conservative, estimation. However, the fact that your hair is already almost black as a result of our bond suggests that our cores are following one of the faster growth patterns."

"What exactly does that mean Harry?"

"Well, based on all of my research we'll definitely meet Flitwick's guess, but we may surpass it by as much as twenty points. If I'm right by the time we graduate we may already be above a 140 on the Emrys Scale. Now topping 140 easily puts us in the top twenty for power in the entire world, but when you have that much power there are a few problems that you encounter."

"Is there a specific problem you are thinking of?" Hermione asked a hint of worry in her voice.

"Well, a wand can only handle so much power, and if you try to use more power than a wand can handle it will burn out and become completely useless. Unfortunately because of the limitations imposed by materials and size no wand has ever been created that could handle full power from a wizard with more than a 142."

"So we won't be able to use wands eventually? That seems like it could be a major problem."

"Well yes and no. Unless you intentionally put more power behind the spell your wand will protect itself by limiting the power output to safe levels, but if you needed to make a spell as powerful as possible you would burn out your wand. As far as it being a problem, we can work around it easily enough. We just learn wandless magic, but wandless magic lacks the precision granted by using a focus."

"So we'll nee to use something other than a wand for a focus then. There are stories of wizards using scepters, which were basically giant wands, and some have suggested that certain characters from Greek mythology, like Orpheus, were using special musical instruments to focus their magic. Also there is the classic staff which is commonly associated with powerful Wizards like Merlin." Hermione was quickly catching on to what Harry was thinking "How much do we know about how to make a staff?"

"I'm glad we're on the same page here," Harry chuckled at how fast Hermione had come to the conclusion that had taken him a week to reach. "the references I've found suggest that making a staff isn't to different from making a wand, but no one uses a staff anymore because the only person who can use it is the person who crafts it. There may be an exception for us since magically we're almost the same person, but I don't know for certain. Either way we would each need one so we'll need to make two anyways."

"So what exactly do we need? Obviously we'll need wood, and a core, but what can we use as a core? Do we need to find cores that are compatible with us like our wands are? What about the wood? Do we use magic to shape everything, or are we going to need tools?"

"Alright, as far as material compatibility goes, it isn't an issue, the crafting attunes the materials to you. We'll need multiple core materials, seven looks like the right number to use, though some texts say that any number will work. Just about any material that is inherently magical can be used for the core and the wood will need to come from a tree which produces wand-quality wood. The wood needs to be shaped without magic to preserve the natural flow of energy through the wood, unfortunately we can't use any tools that have iron in them since iron also taints the flow of magic. Then we'll need to brew a special potion which becomes part of the core by combining all of the different core materials into a single unit."

"So we need a source of wand-quality wood, seven materials for our cores, the ingredients for that potion, and tools that don't have any iron in them. Where do we start?"

"I can write to Ollivander and ask him where we can find an appropriate tree, I'm thinking yew would be a good choice for wood it's one of the more powerful woods for wand making. The potion is easy enough to make so that won't really be an issue. The tools shouldn't be a problem, either use modern woodworking tools made from titanium or some other metal, or traditional dragon bone wand crafting tools. For the core materials we'll need to come up with a list of materials we want to use and find enough from apothecaries or other suppliers."

"So all we can do right now is come up with ideas for core materials? What criteria do we use?" Hermione took out a piece of parchment and a quill.

"Materials that have properties that enhance certain types of magic would be best, and if we have a material that is associated with each of the four elements it should increase the overall control and power for our magic."

"Okay so what can we use for the four elements? Dragon heart-string is used in wands, and should work for fire."

"True, but if we use dragon bone it would also increase the effectiveness of defensive magic."

"Okay then, dragon bone." Hermione wrote _1. dragon bone- fire, defensive magic_ "What about some kind of feather for air?"

"Sounds good, phoenix feathers are out since those would be fire instead of air, hippogriff feathers might work..."

"What about griffin feathers? Griffins are highly magical and extremely dangerous."

"Great idea," Harry smiled as Hermione wrote down _2. griffin feathers- air_ "For water we'll need something aquatic, so grindylows might work."

"Or kappas, merfolk, or selkies."

"What about kelpies, they live in bodies of water, plus they're shape-shifters so it'll improve transfiguration."

Their discussion continued for several minutes as they discussed the virtues of different materials for use in their staffs and eventually settled on using dragon bone, griffin feathers, kelpie hairs, devils snare clippings, for earth and nature magic, acromantula silk, for binding magic, shadow hound fur, for illusion magic, and ghost dust, for conjuration magic. Most of the materials would be easy to purchase from normal suppliers, only the acromantula silk and shadow hound fur couldn't be purchased, luckily Scruffy could provide the fur and Hagrid had raised an acromantula in the school back in the '40s and could likely provide them with unprocessed silk.

At the end of November Hermione's parents wrote back saying that Harry could spend Christmas with them. Harry wasn't sure whether it was a good thing or not that he would be spending the holidays at Hermione's home. On the one hand he would be spending Christmas with Hermione, but he had also been hoping to put off meeting Hermione's parents until the summer at least, if not longer. Harry was concerned about how her parents would feel about him, and how he would deal with them. Harry had no real experience dealing with people, other than Hermione, in a friendly manner. Before he had discovered magic he had been timid and subservient, afterward he had dealt harshly with anyone who crossed him. At Hogwarts he kept his head down around the faculty so he wouldn't draw attention to himself, the other students mostly left him alone, and those who didn't, like Weasley and Malfoy, were quickly and thoroughly convinced that they should go bother someone else. Harry couldn't intimidate the Grangers and he wouldn't force Hermione to abandon her family for him if it could be avoided, so he really had no idea how to handle them. Hermione was convinced that Harry was getting worked up over nothing.

In anticipation of their horcrux retrievals over the holidays Harry ordered a pair of goblin made daggers and a small amount of basilisk venom. When the daggers were delivered Harry applied the basilisk venom, making both daggers capable of destroying horcruxes, along with making them extremely dangerous weapons.

During the first week of December Harry and Hermione took their finals together and easily completed all of them, before boarding the Express back to London. They spent the ride to London in a compartment that Harry had warded for privacy. They discussed their plans for the holidays, the solstice was in a couple of weeks and they would sneak out that night to pay a visit to the home of Alexander Avery to continue there campaign against Voldemort's inner circle. Before that though they would take two mornings to go to the hiding places of Voldemort's horcruxes that they could access with relative ease. When they pulled into the station Harry applied a quick glamor to Hermione's hair and eyes, they would remove it after they had explained the situation to Hermione's parents, until then it would only raise questions that would be difficult to explain quickly.

As soon as they stepped through the barrier back into King's Cross Hermione started dragging Harry along as she rushed towards where she could see her parents waiting for them. "Mum, dad" Hermione let go of Harry's hand and hugged her parents "This is Harry, and this is Harry's dog Scruffy." Hermione quickly introduced her parents Jean and Mathew Granger. They loaded their trunks into the Grangers' car and made the twenty minute drive to the Granger home talking about Hogwarts. When they reached the Granger home they unloaded the car and brought their trunks into the house. It was at this point that they realized that they couldn't put off telling Hermione's parents about their soul-bond.

"Hermione why don't you show Harry to the guest room, so he'll know where to put his trunk." Mrs. Granger suggested.

"Um, before I do that mum, there is something that Harry and I need to talk to you and dad about." Hermione said nervously.

"Hermione if this is about you and Harry being _together_, we already figured that out." Mrs. Granger said with a small smile on her face.

"Well, that's part of it, but there is more to it than that. You should probably sit down, it's a bit complicated." Hermione said pulling Harry toward a small couch while gesturing for her parents to sit in a pair of chairs that completed the living room furniture. Once everyone was seated Hermione described the first two weeks of September to her parents, with Harry occasionally adding clarifications.

"And then on the second Saturday of term we were both in the common room because we couldn't sleep, and I just felt like I needed to kiss him, and when I did we formed a soul-bond." Hermione finished.

"And what exactly is a soul-bond?" Mrs. Granger asked tentatively.

"Well, at its simplest a soul-bond is a magical bond between two people who are as close to perfect for each other as possible." Harry explained. "There are more theories than I can count about why soul-bonds happen, some people think they're fate, destiny, or god making a relationship for whatever reason, and others think they're just the result of statistics. Essentially since a person's magic is an extension of their personality and people with magic can sense other people's magic subconsciously in rare cases two people's magic will recognize exactly what they want in a relationship and will form a bond in order to avoid screwing things up."

"And this bond is permanent? Why would you do that Hermione?" Mr. Granger asked incredulously.

"It isn't a conscious decision dad, it just happened." Hermione said calmly.

"But can't you undo it." Mr. Granger was grasping at straws by this point.

"Even if we could, we wouldn't want to, that's why the bond formed. The reason why we brought this up now is because legally the bond is almost the same thing as a marriage, and since Hogwarts functions on even older laws it is treated as a marriage, so at school Harry and I share a room, and because of the bond we don't sleep as well if we sleep separately. So Harry will be in my room while he's here." Hermione explained in a voice that left no room for argument.

Mr. Granger looked like he was considering raising an objection until his wife shot him a look cutting him off, so he decided to get a clarification on something. "Why is there a difference between how the law views it and how your school views it?"

"The school was founded in 932, and the original bylaws specifically mention how to deal with soul-bonded students, at the time there were no laws about how old you had to be to get married, but in 1377 the Wizengamot passed a law that stated that the groom had to be fourteen, since soul-bonds can form at any age they can't automatically be a legal marriage. At least that was the rationalization, the real reason they said soul-bonds weren't marriages was so that they wouldn't interfere with politically arranged marriages. Hogwarts simply refused to change how it handled soul-bonds." Harry explained.

Over the next hour they talked about all the results of their soul-bond, Hermione eventually dropped the glamors to show her parents her new hair and eyes. Eventually they got to the final issue that the Grangers had noticed about the situation.

"Harry if you two have so much trouble being apart, what are you going to do over the summer?" Mrs. Granger asked.

"I don't really know. I'd take any excuse I can get to not go back to live with my aunt and uncle. We don't really get along to well." Harry said not really looking at anyone.

"Well then you can just stay here over the summer." Mrs. Granger said. If she had had any doubts about her daughter's relationship with Harry they were quickly dispelled by Hermione's reaction to her pronouncement. Over the last hour she had come to accept that Harry was going to be a part of Hermione's life, and even without some mystical connection she would have been willing to bet that they would have stayed together permanently, and if her husband had a problem with the situation she would simply have to make sure that he kept his concerns to himself.

Over the next couple of days Harry eased into the rhythm of the Granger household. Harry and Hermione would wake up early every morning and see Mr. and Mrs. Granger off to work. They would then spend the morning talking or reading or watching television until lunch, when Mr. and Mrs. Granger would return from work for lunch, before returning for their afternoon patients. On Wednesday morning as soon as Mr. and Mrs. Granger had driven away Harry apparated Hermione and Scruffy to a small shack on the outskirts of Little Hangleton, Voldemort's mother's childhood home. Harry lead the way to the front door followed closely by Hermione while Scruffy kept an eye out for threats.

**Alright Tom, time to earn your keep, how do we get the ring without blowing ourselves up?** _I've already told you, it can't be done, the moment you cross the threshold the door will slam shut sealing the building. The anti-apparition wards were keyed only to my old body the moment you touch the box the ring is the foundation will begin to collapse, eventually burying you alive, while an anti-magic field goes up. _Then we simply need to remove the door completely. **If we levitate the box out of the house from here it should eliminate any danger of being trapped inside, and it will bypass the touch-activated wards.** _You won't be able to get to the box from outside of the house, the only way would be to use fiendfyre._ **Oh sure, after all, what's a little black magic between friends. I am not corrupting my soul just to send your worthless ass to whatever hell The Hunter traded you into. Hermione help me get the door off.**

A couple of quick blasting hexes dealt with the flimsy old hinges and soon the door was laying in the grass. "Alright, I'll go inside and open the hidden compartment, if anything happens we'll need to think quickly, okay?" Harry said drawing his wand.

Hermione nodded determinedly while drawing her own wand. Harry stepped across the shack's threshold and immediately felt anti-apparition and anti-portkey wards snap into place. The door flipped over in the grass, but didn't do anything else, but just to be careful Harry picked up a stone and threw it through the open doorway. With a sigh of relief when the stone left the shack unimpeded Harry walked over to where a compartment was hidden behind an empty bookshelf. He pressed his finger against a hidden rune and a section of the wall slid away to reveal a intricately carved wooden box. Harry then backed out of the shack.

"Here gos nothing, _Accio box_." Harry said pointing his wand back at the shack and the box immediately flew through the open door and into his open hand. The moment he touched the box the ground began to rumble as the shack was swallowed by the earth. Wasting no time Harry opened the box and pulled out the ring that was nestled inside. Drawing his goblin dagger he gently placed the tip against the small black stone and applied enough pressure to break the surface. The stone immediately screamed and released a bit of green smoke. The ring flashed as the curses anchored to the horcrux collapsed.

"That's two down, we'll get the locket tomorrow and we can figure out how to get the cup and the diary over the summer." Harry told Hermione turning the ring over in his hand. As Harry looked at the ring Hermione gasped causing Harry to look up. For a moment Harry froze, there standing in front of him were a man and a woman, the man had messy black hair and expressive brown eyes hidden behind wire framed glasses, and the woman had dark red hair and her emerald eyes were identical to his own.

"Hello Harry."

**A/N: Here we have chapter five, sorry it took so long life kept getting in the way and I couldn't decide which of my stories I wanted to update next, and then I got a week long case of writer's block. A quick response to some reviews, Dawlish was not a death eater (that we know of), he was involved in the attempted arrest of Dumbledore in OotP. Now that I have this chapter done I'm going to get back to Master of Time.**


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